Whitman loses the plot

eBay's former chief Meg Whitman has lost a WIPO claim for megwhitman2010.com and four other domain names that she claims exploit her fame.

There has been widespread speculation that Meg is planning to run for election as Governor of California in 2010 (hence the 2010 part of the domain name), other domains in dispute are: megwhitmanforgovernor.com and meg2010.com. All of which are currently not working!

The WIPO panel agreed that Meg was internationally famous but that this alone was not enough to prove that the domain's were identical or confusingly similar to a trade mark in which she owns rights. Meg had opted for a single member panel (cheapskate, the 3 member panels have better transfer rates if my memory serves me right!) and that single member said: "Merely having a 'famous' name is not sufficient to establish common law trademark or service mark rights in the name," yeah well um that's pretty obvious but it does get more interesting: "To be entitled to protection under the Policy, however, a personal name must function as a trademark, and for common law trademark rights to exist, the Complainant’s personal name must have come to be recognized by the public as a symbol which identifies particular goods or services with a single source,".

For Meg to be successful her name: "must be used such that a relevant segment of the public comes to recognize her name as a symbol that distinguishes her services from those of similarly situated service providers.".

To put it bluntly she just hasn't: "provided services under the name 'Meg Whitman' as a source-indicator to a segment of the relevant buying public based on her performance as President and CEO of eBay."

You got that? so basically it's no good just being famous, you also have to use that fame if you wan't to rely on it. But then we all knew that didn't we? and we're thinking why is this guy writing about this as it is very basic........

You've got a point.

Microsoft sue pirates

Microsft have issued a whopping 63 seperate claims against people selling counterfeit software on auction sites (think eBay). The BBC reports that the legal action targets sellers from a total of 12 nations (including all the big boys). The majority of the defendants have been selling fake "Blue" versions of Microsofts XP operating system, it should though be noted that XP has been replaced by Vista (equally nasty to use in IP Freely's humble opinion) although this hasn't been received particularly well by the business world.

Microsoft claim:

"These dealers are peddling bogus products that can put customers and their personal information at serious risk,"

and that:

"Consumers should be aware that the so-called 'Blue Edition' software is nothing more than low-quality counterfeit software burned onto a CD,"

IP Freely says: 1) The people that are ripping off Microsoft are stupid (seriously Bill doesn't like this malarky and willl come after you) and 2) Microsoft only care because Vista has bombed, if it has been a success then this would have never come to light.

On a serious note, with the wave of counterfeit software cases kicking around at the moment people should really be careful with what they download and what they buy.